All Quiet, For Now
by tetleybag
Summary: What if Minerva McGonagall had been Headmistress during the First War? and a few other questions. (AU)


**All Quiet, For Now**

**by tetley**

If anyone had been out in the streets of Little Whinging, Surrey, in the early hours of November 1, 1981, round about two o'clock, they would have spotted a most curious sight.

Or, well, they might if the street lamps had been functioning.

This sight consisted of a Someone. A woman, for all one could tell from the straight-backed posture and the narrow, small-stepped gait with which she walked down the street, and the gentle swishing of her cloak as she turned from Privet Drive into Magnolia Crescent. The cloak was dark green, long and mostly shapeless and quite completely out of fashion, all the more so for the faintly-shimmering silver stars and purple gemstones that were embroidered on it and the likes of which hadn't been worn since 1974 at least. Long hair fell down her back, jet-black and smooth except for a few wiry wisps of grey, wafting slightly in cadence with her steps. On her head, she wore a black, pointed hat with a wide brim that almost looked like one would imagine a witch's hat. Why, if one _believed_ in witches, one might well-nigh think that the woman walking down the streets here actually _was_ one. A leftover perhaps, from the revelries of the evening before, looking for her broomstick?

The woman's face was concealed by the shadow of the hat, so even if the street lamps had been working, one would not have seen the deep lines on her forehead and the creases around her narrow lips, nor the grave look in the clear, slate-grey eyes that peered over a pair of green-rimmed half-moon spectacles perching on the tip of a beak-like nose. She was clearly worried.

The woman, as the reader may have guessed by now, was Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Order of Merlin (First Class), Chief Augur of the Wizengamot, and Head Witch in Charge of the International Confederation of Wizards. She had just left the slope of Magnolia Crescent and was about to turn into Wisteria Walk, when her shoulders gave a twitch.

She stopped and cocked her head.

And indeed. There was a sound in the dark, someone or something panting as it drew closer fast, soon joined by a soft, quick-paced _tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap_ on the pavement.

McGonagall turned around. A Border Terrier was running towards her, surprisingly agile for a frame that could best be described as sturdy. Its coat was of an undefinable colour, though a few hairs around the strong muzzle were already on the grey side.

McGonagall crossed her arms and waited.

"Fancy seeing you here, Amelia Bones," she said when the terrier had caught up with her.

If it hadn't been quite as dark, and if there had been someone in the streets to begin with, that someone would now have seen yet another curious sight. Now, this one was _really_ strange. For wouldn't one expect one's average suburban Border Terrier to jump at the woman to greet her, or, if it was of the better-behaved kind, sit down and wait to be petted or given a treat?

Well, this one did nothing of the sort. Instead, it raised itself on its hind legs just like that and – cross my heart indeed! – grew into a woman. A somewhat stocky one, with close-cropped hair as variably-coloured as the dog's fur had been. She was clad in a navy-blue cloak even more shapeless than the other one's, but short enough to reveal a pair of sensible walking shoes.

"Is it true, Minerva?" the woman asked as soon as she had regained her shape.

McGonagall nodded grimly.

"Damn."

There was a short pause.

"Let's walk," McGonagall said. "We shouldn't still be out here."

"My place?"

"You have time?"

"Yes. The gang is deployed; I'm off until six if nobody needs me before that. And I want to know what happened."

The women walked in silence. At the end of Wisteria Walk, they stopped and cast a quick look around. "Damn," Bones muttered again when she saw that they were no longer alone. An old man was walking his dog, and Squad Chief Amelia Bones was given to expletives.

"Let's make him take us for Hallowe'en celebrators who can't read a calendar," McGonagall murmured, taking a step closer towards her companion. "Comrade Bones: Shoulder – arms!"

Bones did as she was told and wrapped her arms around McGonagall's shoulders. McGonagall in turn slung hers around Bones's waist and tilted her head just so that the passer-by could not see – but was given a fair idea – what the wide-brimmed hat might be concealing. He mumbled something not entirely friendly and then shuffled along on his way.

"Heavens, McGonagall," Bones said when he was gone. She let her arms sink and looked at the other one in mock amazement. "You can still do it."

"Factual exigency," McGonagall stated. "Admit it, you were just about to give him a mouthful."

"You read me like an open book."

McGonagall's eyebrows answered something along the lines of: "What else is new?"

They looked around once more, and, as the air was clear, disappeared into the shrubbery at the end of the street. There, surrounded by elderflower and butterfly bushes, they embraced again – this time with considerably less tenderness – and vanished with a loud _CRACK_.

A heartbeat later, they were in a sitting room, approximately the size of the kind found in your typical Bloomsbury terrace house. It was not very neat, but that circumstance was mitigated by the concomitant fact that there was not much in there to begin with. A sofa with two crumpled blankets, a small coffee table with a cup, an open pack of cigarettes and an ashtray, a bookshelf, an unadorned fireplace, and a mixed heap of recent editions of the _Daily Prophet_, the _International Warlock Tribune_, _Le Monde du Magicien_, and the _Zürcher Zauberer-Zeitung_ on a small cabinet. Otherwise, the eye remained quite unencumbered by stimulus.

"Everything all right?" Bones asked as she let go of McGonagall's waist.

"Yes," McGonagall answered, not that she was the type who would have replied anything else under any circumstance. She seemed half-surprised at her continuing physical integrity, though, and looked at her hands as if to make sure they had actually come along. "How do you do it, Apparating into your flat with unannounced company? I imagine it must have strong wards."

"It does," Bones said. "Proprietary identity detection system, most sophisticated version out there, plus movement recognition and targeted intruder incapacitation. Believe me, if you had squeezed my chest any more tightly and I'd have done so much as wriggle, it would not have been pleasant for you. Firewhisky?"

"No, thanks," McGonagall said. "A glass of water, though, if I may."

"I'll join you on that."

Bones Summoned two glasses from the kitchen, checked if they were clean, and filled them with a jet of water from her wand.

"Did you find him?" McGonagall asked as Bones handed her one of the glasses.

"Riddle?" Bones shook her head. "Crouch tells everyone he's dead, but Alastor and I don't believe it."

"No trace of him, though? No signature in the air?"

"Not a sparkle. Which either means he's lying low, or he's incapacitated and can't do magic. Or dead, but really, I file that under wishful thinking."

"How so?"

Bones shrugged. "I'm realistic. Face it, for all we know he's killed enough people to store his energy until the end of time, and he'll know how to do it."

McGonagall looked at Bones, astonished. "A horcrux, you mean?"

"We'll be lucky if it's only one."

"Hm." McGonagall sat down, took off her reading glasses, and let her gaze trail off. She'd been teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts for long enough to know what that could mean. "If that is what he did, how long do you think he'll need to regenerate?"

Bones shrugged. "Depends. If his bodily functions have ceased, he'll have to recover solely from the life energy of the victim, or victims, and the brain activity he's isolated from himself. And that, he won't be able to do without help, which is why we're trying hard now to get all of his followers. But even if he still has vital functions, it'll take some time. He'll need to retrieve the object, or objects, and he'd be crazy to have them anywhere near him."

McGonagall frowned. "You really think he made more than one?"

"Let's say I wouldn't put it past him. And my job is to assume the worst." Bones leaned back in her armchair and laid an arm on its backrest. "But now tell me," she said. "What happened at your end?"

"How much do you know?"

"Best you start from where you left off."

"All right."

The last contact between them had been around eight that evening. When the news of the fighting in Godric's Hollow had arrived at Hogwarts, McGonagall had immediately sent a Patronus to Amelia Bones, Chief of Auror Squad IIIA, who had then informed her boss, Bartemius Crouch. Then McGonagall and her Deputy Albus Dumbledore had set out for Godric's Hollow.

"When we arrived at the Potters', Albus secured the cottage and I took out the boy. Alastor came soon after, so we left the house to him."

"Good girls, you two," Bones said. While she generally appreciated McGonagall's and Dumbledore's tendency to meddle and was usually quite happy to cooperate with them (informal contacts _could_ have their advantages if one was an Auror), the matter of territory had always been a sensitive point between them. Bones could get particularly nervous if Dumbledore's 'scouts', as she called them, got in the way. The Aurors among them weren't the problem, but boys just out of school, she maintained, were hardly proper staffing for a militia. McGonagall had snorted at the term when she'd first heard it. Militia! You make it sound as if they were running around sniping folk from behind dustbins. Well, Bones had asked in return, who tells me they aren't?

McGonagall took a sip of water before she continued. "When we had the baby, we retreated to Bathilda's place, to which Albus had already summoned some of his Order members. The first question was what to do with the boy. You'll understand that none of us had even half a mind to leave him to Dolores and the Department of Destitute Magical Minors."

"Absolutely." Bones's face spoke volumes about what she thought of said Dolores.

"So I asked if anyone had any capacity to take on a child for a few days until we could decide what to do. Head-shaking all-around, or I should say from the women. The men didn't even react. Well, Hagrid did, but Albus said it wasn't an option. Which, to be honest ..." McGonagall's eyebrow finished the sentence.

"Quite," Bones agreed.

"In any case," McGonagall continued, "I couldn't take him myself, not with the school being a mess and the hospital wing full of children so Poppy can't look after him, either. I wanted to ask again, but at that point Albus stepped in. Turned out he had two arguments. The first one was that it would be better for the boy to grow up outside the wizarding world, so his character remain unspoiled from the celebrity status he would inevitably acquire, as he said."

"Hm. Can't deny he has a point."

"Perhaps, though frankly, I can't see why the boy should be withheld the knowledge and skills that wizarding children already acquire at a young age. Myself, I'd rather see him grow up among magical folk so he shan't be dumped into a completely alien culture at a sensitive age. But be that as it may, I was in a weak position to argue, since I'm obviously not taking him on myself. And then there was Albus's other argument, which settled the matter for everyone else who still might have been doubting."

"I'm all ears."

"_Nobody can grant him the safety that those of his own blood can provide_."

"Oh, please," Bones sighed. "Not _that_ again."

"I'm afraid _exactly_ that again. You know, the magnetism of the blood that runs in your veins and that forms an invisible –"

"– and also otherwise quite unprovable –"

"– bond between an infant and his immediate family, so no forces of evil can penetrate, so to speak, the inviolable hymen that guards the fruit in the metaphorical womb of his biological next-of-kin."

"Excellent." Bones gave an exasperated snort. "Just excellent. Tell me, is there _anyone_ in this community except you and me who is _not_ obsessed with blood?" She leaned forward and reached for the cigarettes. "I'm serious, McGonagall. I don't contest his good intentions, but is _that_ what listening to too much Wagner does to a man?"

"Not sure about causalities here," McGonagall said. "But I'm quite sure you don't want to hear his explanation for Harry's survival."

"On the contrary. I can't wait."

"Well, he says it's because his mother has given her life for him. '_Only a woman's love can vanquish death_' were his words."

_Slam!_ went Bones's hand on the table. She shot up from her armchair, white-faced, and a vein that McGonagall knew all too well had appeared on her forehead. "So, is that what it is?" she shouted. "My niece and nephew died because it was only their _father_ who threw himself in the way? What next? Shall I go out there and arrest all surviving mothers of dead children for denial of assistance? Erect a calvary for mothers and virgins so we can accumulate some credit for when the next _real_ people are threatened?"

"I did ask Albus if he didn't find his reasoning a bit cynical, given Edgar's sacrifice."

"And what did he say?"

"Nothing. Molly answered for him. Said I was being irrational because I am _friends_ with Edgar's sister, emphasis not added. And that _of course_ a mother's bond is different from a father's, everybody knew that. I wanted to answer her, but everyone else felt that I should leave it, except Hestia ..."

"Well, I'm glad at least _one_ ..."

"... who whispered to me afterwards that she wholeheartedly agrees with me."

Bones slumped down in her chair. "Great." She took a last drag from her Benson &amp; Hedges and stubbed it out in the ashtray. "So it's settled?" she asked, much calmer now. "The boy is with his aunt?"

"Yes," McGonagall said. "And truth be told, I think it's the best we can do at the moment. I dropped him off there myself and told her everything. She has a right to know. I also told her to contact me immediately if it gets too much or if the boy goes anywhere. She wasn't enthusiastic and no more likeable than when I met her some twelve years ago, but I think she'll provide. Anyway, you know what to do now."

"I do." Bones nodded, rubbing her square chin as so often when she weighed options. "Well, it's just a matter of organisation. Whom would _you_ send, tell me?"

"Your sister."

"Olivia? Don't you think she's a bit high-calibre for that?"

McGonagall shrugged. "It may be my motherly instincts coming through, but I don't think there's a more worthwhile job for your best agent."

"I'll think about it. She'll need a Muggle identity and good camouflage, but that's the easiest part. We'll need to look for a vacant house in the neighbourhood. And I might give her Quibbles for backup and patrols."

"Oh, won't he be thrilled."

Bones laughed. "At least he won't starve in her care."

"There is that," McGonagall said.

Bones got up from her armchair and refilled their glasses. "Ah, McGonagall." She sat down heavily in her chair. "You know, sometimes I think it should have been you instead of me."

McGonagall shook her head. "You passed, I failed. It all had a purpose."

Bones laughed. "Ever the pastor's daughter." She raised her waterglass. "Here's to you. Minerva McGonagall, Auror _manquée_ because she can't stick to protocol for tuppence when her conscience tells her otherwise. You're a pain, but Heaven knows the world needs more of you." She let her glass sink without drinking. "Did I ever tell you that I never forgot your words when Crouch gave you that public dressing-down after the last manoeuvre you botched up? 'I follow principles, Mr. Crouch, not bookstaves.' There isn't a day when I don't think of them. Sometimes they make me wonder if I'm not already too much of a technocrat."

She grabbed the golden pack on the table again. Amelia Bones believed no more in blood pressure than in the special sacredness of motherhood, and she lived accordingly. She held her wand to the tip of the cigarette, took a puff, and leaned back. "There is one more thing I'm trying to wrap my mind around, though," she said. "You were there after it happened. Did you notice anything at all about why the curse might have backfired? Alastor didn't see a thing, but he arrived quite some time after you."

"No." McGonagall shook her head. "No objects in the way that could have deflected the spell, and I think we can rule out lack of skill." She leaned forward and reached for the cigarettes. Apparently she had enough of the bluish clouds of smoke filling up the air around her, and thus prepared herself to fight back. _If you can't beat them, join them_ wasn't usually her motto, but when it came to Amelia Bones and her various inclinations, she tended to make exceptions. A tendency that was mutual, by the way. "However, I did manage to talk to Poppy, and she has a theory. She'd have to examine the boy to verify it, but I have to say it sounds like a possibility."

"What theory would that be?"

"Well, you know how the Avada Kedavra works." A small flame shot up from McGonagall's wand

Bones nodded. The elementary physiology of Unforgivables were part of first-year Auror training. She and McGonagall had taken the course together, and Bones remembered all too well the shared swotting sessions that usually began with the two of them poring over parchments spread out on the floor and ended with the two of them lying entangled on said parchments, Cadet McGonagall snatching the occasional puff from Cadet Bones's post-shag fag. And since getting a good rest on one's study material was the best way to retain its contents, they also both knew that the Avada Kedavra caused instant massive coagulation of blood, generally leading to immediate unconsciousness inevitably followed by death.

"Suppose now," McGonagall said, "that the blood of a victim doesn't clot ..."

Bones frowned. "You mean if the victim is a haemophiliac?"

"Precisely."

"Hm." Bones shook her head. "Never heard of that being the cause of anyone surviving an Avada Kedavra."

"Nor I. But Poppy says the condition is extremely rare, especially in the wizarding world and even more especially in its severest form."

"Hm." Bones still didn't sound convinced. "Wouldn't such a disease have been noticed even at the age of one? For example, was he bleeding when you rescued him?"

"No. And as I said, it's only a theory as of now. I'll ask Severus if he performed any healing magic when he found the boy, but knowing Severus, I doubt it."

"Wait – _Severus Snape_ was there?"

"Yes. Don't ask me why. I hope he'll tell me eventually, but there was no point in asking him just then. He was completely paralysed."

Bones shook her head. "That boy." She reached for the ashtray. "What are you going to do with him?"

She'd never been convinced of McGonagall's idea to take him on as a teacher, especially given his somewhat deficient people skills. Of course, there was the question what other options existed that wouldn't drive him right back to where he came from, but still ...

"I think I'm going to let him teach Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"You _what_?"

"Not this year, and not every class. I'll keep the very young and the advanced ones myself. But yes, I do want him there. He's got something that nobody else can teach like him."

"Unforgivables?" Bones's voice sounded sarcastic.

"I can cast Unforgivables as well as the rest of them, as well you know," McGonagall shot back. "No, Bones. I'm speaking of the seductiveness of destructive narratives, how they can draw you in if they hit you in the right spot, and what they do to you. He's got a credibility there that nobody can match. Especially with the group that is most at risk. Or what do you or I have to say to angry young boys?" She'd begun to emphasise words with her fingertips, as always when she got into the flow of an argument. "And then, Bones: Who tells me that the next Tom Riddle isn't already out there, lying in wait? We have two trumps. Education is one, faith in the system the other. The first one is in my hands, and I'm going to play it."

Bones had listened with furrowed brows. "I see what you mean," she said at last. "It's risky, but I see it. Just tell me this: do we _know_ he's on our side?"

"You should have seen his face, Amelia," McGonagall said. "Severus Snape may be able to fake an impassive face, but not a grief-stricken one. He knows what he's been part of. He may still not be a nice person, but as you know I do not believe in wrapping children in cotton-wool, so as long as he keeps within certain limits, the students will have to deal with him. Plus, it's what he wants to do, and some job satisfaction may go some length in mellowing him."

"All right, McGonagall," Bones said. "You've convinced me. Not that it matters."

"It does," McGonagall answered quietly. "Don't think I'm as cock-sure as I act. Only if I let that on in front of anyone, I'll be out of the job faster than Rolanda Hooch can say Quidditch." Bones laughed. The quickness of Rolanda Hooch's tongue was legend among anyone who knew her. "And I'm not sure what my successor would do about him. I'm not sure what _Albus_ would do, and frankly, I don't want to give him the chance," McGonagall continued. "I don't want to lose the boy yet again. He deserves a break from trauma and frustration. Can't say _I've_ always played my part well on that score."

Bones rubbed her chin, then nodded slowly. "Just promise me one thing, Minerva, will you?"

"What?"

"Leave the pastor's daughter out of this. This is a chance for _him_ to do a good thing, not for _you_ to redeem his soul, or worse, your own. Any sign he might be doing harm, he's back to Potions."

McGonagall said nothing for a while. At last, she gave a wan smile. "Deal."

"Very well," Bones said, pushing herself up from her armchair. "And now I think you _should_ have a Firewhisky."

"Frankly, I wouldn't mind one now," McGonagall admitted. "Or would you rather have some sleep before you go back to Headquarters?"

"Me, sleep? Now?" Bones shook her head. "Hopeless." She got up, went to the cabinet by the sofa, and retrieved a bottle, a tumbler, and a purple tin. Apparently she had decided to try switching drugs herself.

She poured McGonagall a glass and fished two Chocolate Frogs from the tin.

"What've you got there?" McGonagall cast a curious look at the flourished writing on the tin. "Is that the witches' edition?"

"Indeed it is." Bones unwrapped the first frog, bit off its head, and looked at the card. "Want an Alcina? I've got about five by now. She's dressed, though."

"Ah, don't bother. I'm not into the _sorcière fatale_ type."

"Not, eh?" She quickly finished off the rest of the frog (they had a habit of twitching rather unnervingly once decapitated) and opened the second one.

"Why, will you _look_ at this?"

She held the card at some distance, the better to look at it, then turned it around to read the text and handed it to McGonagall with a wide smile. "Congratulations, Comrade. You made it."

The card read:

_MINERVA McGONAGALL  
CURRENTLY HEADMISTRESS OF HOGWARTS_

_Considered by many one of the greatest witches of modern times,_  
McGonagall is particularly famous for her defeat of the dark witch Grindelwald in 1945,  
for the discovery of McGonagall's Law of Trans-Species Transformation,  
and her work on modern didactics in magical education  
together with her work partner Griselda Marchbanks.  
Professor McGonagall enjoys bagpipe music and chess.

McGonagall laughed. "Heavens! 'Dark witch Grindelwald' – that's certainly giving old Grimhild more credit than she deserves."

"Wonder if the reversed digits are on purpose. 1945 sure reads a sight more dramatic than 1954."

"Not to mention flattering. Imagine, me defeating the Wicked Witch of the Alps at the tender age of twenty."

"It also sounds rather grand the way it's worded, doesn't it? 'Defeat'?"

"For uncovering that the President of the International Council of Witches is a corrupt bitch with totalitarian leanings?" McGonagall asked. "It does." She read the card once more. "But what really bothers me is that Marijana isn't mentioned. Think I should write to them? Or do you think she has her own card?"

"Chocolate Frogs Unltd. putting Marijana Malkovic on a collecting card? The woman who said that consumer goods were the opium of the western bourgeoisie? Dream on."

"I think her exact words were 'consumer goods in eco-friendly packaging,'" McGonagall said. "Which would leave Chocolate Frogs off the hook. No, but it's a shame, really. After all, I only gave the speech and organised the publicity. She was the accountant; she did the research and most of the maths."

Bones reached for the firewhisky, apparently having decided that a tiny helping would do no harm after all. "We read all about it back then. It was all over Wytch Magazine, and even Witch Weekly ran a special. Of course, the boys at the Daily Prophet had a party, too." She poured half a finger into her waterglass and carefully re-corked the bottle. "I'd wanted to write to you, but ..." Her voice trailed off.

"I understand," McGonagall said. She put down her tumbler and reached for Bones's cigarettes again. They both had their own lives back then, in the decades after McGonagall's failed attempt at becoming an Auror, and were busy living those lives to the fullest. While McGonagall had discovered politics, Amelia Bones had specialised in the private side of things.

"Strange how that went, isn't it?" McGonagall continued.

Bones nodded. "You can say that again."

Once upon an era, there had been a time when not a day, and, for a while, hardly a night went past that Cadet Bones and Cadet McGonagall did not spend together. They were eighteen, nineteen, twenty, the brightest ones in their year. In love with each other, with their ideas, with the unshakable confidence of the innocent that one day they would rid the world of evil. But then things went the way they went. Cadet McGonagall was thrown out of the Auror programme for repeated failure to follow protocol and went on to study on the Continent.

Of course they had sworn to keep in touch, but that promise went the way so many similar ones had gone before. McGonagall joined the witches' movement; Bones found another lover – the first in a series of many liberated souls who wanted to _experience_ a woman before settling down with a man, oh, darling, don't think it doesn't hurt me, _too_, and who left Amelia Bones drained, exhausted, and a confirmed bachelorette at the age of thirty-nine who would rather take home her work than another woman because her work could be trusted still to be there the next month.

It wasn't until Tom Riddle and his thugs had begun terrorising Wizarding Britain that Amelia Bones and Minerva McGonagall had resumed part of their old comradeship. They knew and respected each other's qualities and had both found it only logical to pool their strengths to see what they could do about the situation. Yet with the school in turmoil and violence erupting at ever faster intervals, there remained only so much time for the what-have-you-been-up-tos that one usually exchanged after long periods apart. Then again, neither of them had much missed the verbal exchange of CVs. The two might not have seen much of each other in decades, but they found that the old familiarity was still there, and that they could speak to each other and trust each other, challenge each other's judgment and consider each other's opinion as if no time had passed. That was what counted. The blanks could be filled bit by bit.

Like now.

"How _did_ you get involved with that whole thing?" Bones asked.

"Well," McGonagall said with a small shrug and an even smaller smile. "I was young, as you know. A little adrift, and more than a little excitable."

"Oversexed and undershagged, you mean?"

"Twenty-something, single, and underemployed, I mean."

"Wait, I thought you were studying?"

"I was. But remember, I was on the Continent. They left you time back then, when you were a student. To ripen, they said, and my, ripen I did."

"So Grindelwald needed to do nothing but pluck you?"

McGonagall looked at her tumbler, and her lips twitched. "I considered myself well and thoroughly plucked by Grimhild Grindelwald; this much I will concede. She was persuasive. Tall, slim, broad-shouldered, with an incredible voice and incredible charisma. And at first, her ideas sounded convincing. 'For the Common Good – How Witches Must Assume Responsibility in Society.' Well, assuming responsibility– I wanted to do just that! Education, her big thing, was right up my alley, too. It was only later than we noticed where she was going."

"Power for herself, not for women, you mean?"

"Precisely. She was convinced that the world should be run by strong women such as herself, and that therefore all means for them to assume power were legitimate. In truth, though, she thought very little of most women. What she wanted was a mass of loyal followers who would campaign for her, not a community of independent thinkers."

"She sounds like the perfect candidate for Minister of Magic."

"She does, doesn't she?" McGonagall's face clearly revealed what she thought of the current leadership of Wizarding Britain. "In any case, we young women, my friend Marijana and Olympe Maxime and I, we'd thought that under Grimhilds leadership we could learn from each other, find our voices, gather strength, knowledge, and confidence to participate in public debate. But in the end what we had was a leader and a growing number of groupies willing to use any and all strategies to be allowed to be the most efficient servants. Which included the full repertoire of scheming, manipulating, guilt-tripping, dealing out blows below the belt while playing victim, you name it. You know, everything Marijana and Olympe and I had wanted women to overcome. Plus, it was nearly impossible to counter. How do you want to organise a democratic process when people are not prepared to be honest and face the music? Olympe once asked that in a meeting. A day later, rumours started going around that she was actually a man. Two weeks later, she was gone."

"What's she doing now?" Bones asked. She had read the name in _Le Monde du Magicien_ once or twice, but not of late.

"Deputy Headmistress at Beauxbatons. My hunch is she'll succeed Saint-Emile when he retires."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"After Olympe was gone, Marijana and I left, too. We got in touch with other parts of the movement, but none of them was as strong as Grimhild's. So the inevitable happened, and Grimhild was elected President of the International Council of Witches. This was when the accountant and the Auror _manquée_ pooled their forces. From the old days, we'd had a hunch about how Grimhild handled money, and the Permanent Secretary was soon so unhappy with her leadership that she was willing to provide us with documents. It took Marijana three months to plough through the papers, but in the end, we had enough for a major embezzlement scandal. Personally, I'd have preferred her to fall over her power games, but Marijana said that you've got to take the opportunities as they present themselves. Well, anyway, at the 1954 Conference in London, I asked for the floor during the general debate, and the rest is history."

"And that was the defeat of the Dark Witch Grindelwald." Bones let out a sigh. "Ah, McGonagall. You know, sometimes I wish you had a little more sense for the ... dramatic, shall we say. I mean, couldn't you have polyjuiced into a dazzling beauty –"

"_Pardon_?"

"Sorry, an _even more_ dazzling beauty, entered her bedroom, given Grimhild Grindelwald the first ever orgasm of her long, frustrated life, and _KAWHOOSH_, gone would have been her power over man, woman, and the universe?"

McGonagall peered over the rim of her spectacles. "Now _who_ has been listening to too much Wagner?"

Bones shrugged. "Merely offering a suggestion on how to make it further than Chocolate Frog cards, women's edition." She raised her tumbler with a smirk. "Don't complain to me if Islington Fantastic never approach you about the rights to your story."

McGonagall laughed. She knew that Bones knew that selling her story was the last thing she'd ever consider, and she also knew that if the story had been Bones's, she'd feel the same way.

They fell silent again. Holding the tumblers in their laps, they looked at each other through the clouds of smoke that rose and dissolved. At one point, one of them may have softly shaken her head, as if some part of her didn't want to believe they were sitting here, in a cold flat in a cold night, with a series of murders going on, when according to their plans of thirty-eight years before, they should just about have succeeded in ridding the world of evil by now. Sitting here, when women their age should long be in bed, with a warm blanket and perhaps a cat by their feet, the last glows of embers in the fireplace and a good book on the nightstand.

"Speaking of sex, Minerva ..." Amelia Bones said after a while. "How long has it been?"

There was a look across the table, one with a softness that may or may not have been a reflection from the tumbler, an effect of the wisp of smoke rising from the cigarette. "Long, Amelia. I'm not who I was forty years ago."

"Nor am I."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yes. Not the ecstasy, not so much. But I could use a little tenderness sometime."

She looked into the slate-grey eyes, and as Minerva's hand slowly reached across the table, her own did the same.

"Frankly, Bones, I'm not sure I manage the full programme tonight," Minerva said with a smile. "But tenderness sounds all right by me. Very much all right."

Thus they sat for a while, two hands entwined above a plain beechwood table. A long, slender one with an emerald ring, and a smaller, unadorned one, both bearing the traces of decades spent trying to grasp the world, to form and re-form it into something worth living in, and, in the end, never to stop holding on to the hope that the effort would not have been in vain.

It was Minerva who got up first. She circled the table, bare fingers casually flicking at the fireplace to light it. She cupped Amelia's cheeks in her hands, and then she softly pressed her lips on that mouth that rarely failed to irritate, excite, provoke, and otherwise stir her whenever it moved. A strand of hair slid from her back as she leaned down, like a curtain to shield the intimacy of the moment.

Amelia got up from her armchair. Tucking the strand back behind Minerva's ear, she let her hand trail down the green robe, inch by inch, until it came to rest just below the shoulderblade.

Slowly, they went to the sofa

In a few hours, dawn would call them out into the world again. A world in ruins, with the visible debris, that of burned wood and broken stone, being their smallest problem. The two of them would go, and, as one did, pick up pieces wherever they came across them and try to put them back together into some shape that would hold, somehow, for better or for worse.

Not much had been won yet, and their work was far from over. But for this night, for these few hours, the world could do without Minerva McGonagall and Amelia Bones.

For now, all was quiet.


End file.
